Miran's comments came on a day when the government's latest employment report was delayed due to shutdown
Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran called for a more aggressive pace of interest rate cuts, arguing that the central bank’s policy has become too restrictive in light of recent economic shifts—particularly those driven by immigration and changes in the labor market.
In a Friday interview with Bloomberg television, Miran said, “My view is that if policy is out of whack, you should adjust it at a reasonably brisk pace.”
He cautioned that while the current rate setting is not an immediate crisis, “if you keep it there for an extra year, yeah, I think you have problems on your hands.”
Miran made his remarks as the government’s jobs report was delayed by a budget standoff in Congress. Sam Williamson, senior economist at First American, believes the central bank may prefer to hold steady until the flow of information resumes.
However, Miran downplayed the impact of the missing data, saying the Federal Reserve still has time before its next policy meeting in late October.
“Access to data is important to making policy,” Miran said, but he emphasized that monetary policy should be forward-looking rather than relying solely on backward-looking indicators, a stance he described as “misguided.”
Diverging views within the Federal Reserve
Miran’s push for faster rate cuts sets him apart from most of his colleagues at the Fed, many of whom remain cautious about easing policy with inflation still above the central bank’s 2% target.
“We’re not at the point yet where, if you sort of keep it there another day, it’s a crisis,” Miran said, but he warned of longer-term risks if rates remain elevated.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, speaking on CNBC, highlighted the central bank’s dilemma: “You see this uptick in inflation and particularly the uptick in services inflation, which is probably not coming from tariffs,” Goolsbee, a voting member this year, said. “I’m a little wary about front-loading too many rate cuts and just counting on the inflation going away.”
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, speaking separately at the University of Texas at Austin, echoed Goolsbee’s caution. “We need to be very cautious about rate cuts from here and make sure that we appropriately calibrate policy so that you don’t ease conditions too much and only to have to reverse course, which would be very painful in terms of restoring price stability,” Logan said.
Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, who supported a smaller rate cut at the last meeting, has since warned that the Fed risks falling behind in supporting the labor market. Meanwhile, Chair Jerome Powell recently noted that there was “not widespread support at all for a 50-basis-point cut,” underscoring the lack of consensus within the central bank.
Miran’s rationale and outlier position
Miran argued that the so-called neutral interest rate—the level at which policy is neither restrictive nor stimulative—has declined, meaning current policy is tighter than it appears. He pointed to tight housing finance conditions as evidence, despite buoyant financial markets.
Miran also addressed concerns about tariffs, stating he was “not seeing broad based inflation increase” from them and that Americans could manage the impact through demand elasticity. He reiterated that his role at the Fed is to “bring out of consensus ideas” and that he will “speak my mind if I believe the ideas are right.”
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